Philadelphia native Julie K. Brown, now in her early 60s, has a long history in journalism. But she is best known for her bombshell reporting on billionaire financier and convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein for the Miami Herald.
Brown's reporting in 2018 really brought out, in great detail, just how bad Epstein's crimes were.
Epstein was found dead in his cell in the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on August 10, 2019, but six years later, President Donald Trump's handling of the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Epstein files is a controversy that won't go away.
Brown candidly discussed Trump and Epstein during an interview with the English-language edition of Spain's El País published in Q&A form on November 28. And she fears that Trump will try to cover up his allies' involvement with Epstein.
Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney and fixer, is a scathing critic of his ex-employer these days. But in his appearances on MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), Cohen pointed out that during his years working for Trump, he "actually never heard him mention Jeffrey Epstein at all."
Cohen told then-MSNBC, "I never heard Jeffrey Epstein on the phone or even call into the office. There was no relationship, from the time I started at the org to the time that I left."
Trump recently signed into law the Epstein Files Transparency Act of 2025, ordering U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to release DOJ's unredacted Epstein files within 30 years. But Brown isn't impressed.
When El País asked her if the Trump-era DOJ will "exploit loopholes in The Epstein Files Transparency Act to withhold information," she responded, "Absolutely."
Brown told El País, "I think they will try to cover up for powerful men. And like they say, the cover-up is often worse than the crime itself. This has been a phenomenal cover-up operation for decades. I can't help but be skeptical."
El País asked Brown what Trump is "hiding about Epstein," and she responded, "I don't know the answer."
Brown continued, "I don't know what he saw in the files, or what someone told him they saw in the files, but there are obviously things in there that he doesn't want released. And the more agitated he becomes, the angrier he becomes. It's worse because it just makes people more and more suspicious…. There is a list of people who helped Epstein, and I'm sure the FBI, at some point, compiled a list of those potential suspects."
El País also asked Brown if she thinks that Epstein ally Ghislaine Maxwell, now serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in his sex crimes, will receive a presidential pardon from Trump.
The reporter told El País, "I think she believes she's going to be pardoned. She has a lot of information, and she's setting herself up for a pardon…. There were many people involved. For example, Steve Bannon, who has been proven to have tried to help Epstein repair his reputation after it became known that he was a pedophile. Let's remember that Bannon is one of the founders of the MAGA movement."
Read El País' full interview with journalist/author Julie K. Brown at this link.
